“Bright colors do better than pale colors. Horizontal canvases do better than vertical ones. Nudity sells for more than modesty, and female nudes for much more than male. A Boucher female nude sells for ten times the price of a male nude. Figurative works do better than landscapes. A still life with flowers is worth more than one with fruit, and roses are worth more than chrysanthemums. Calm water adds value (think of Monet’s Water Lilies); rough water brings lower prices (thin maritime pictures). Shipwrecks bring even less.
Pure-bred dogs are worth more than mongrels, and racehorses more than cart horses. For paintings which include game birds, the more expensive it is to hunt the bird, the more the bird adds to the value of the painting; a grouse is worth tree times as much as a mallard. There is an even more specific rule, offered by New York private dealer David Nash; paintings with cows never do well. Never. “
I always read books non-linearly, and started Don Thompson’s “The $12 Million Stuffed Shark” from the back. With an ending like that I am beginning to wish I never started. Even from someone who appreciates the comfy bedfellows of art and money, I find this drivel, even if true, a bore.
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